The present invention relates to a recording medium reproducing apparatus for reproducing a recording medium in which video and audio data is recorded and, more particularly, relates to a recording medium reproducing apparatus capable of selecting and reproducing dubbed audio and subpicture (subtitles or caption).
The recording medium reproducing apparatus proposed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 6-243572A is an apparatus which reproduces a recording medium such as a compact disc (CD), a mini disc (MD) etc. and includes a sound field correcting function for improving sound quality and sound field effect. The recording medium reproducing apparatus is arranged in a manner that the sound field setting information is registered in advance for each recording medium on the basis of the discrimination information of the recording medium thereby to reduce the burden of the operation for setting the sound filed of the sound field correction function which has been performed whenever the recording medium is reproduced.
A digital versatile disc (DVD) is a disc-shaped recording medium for recording digital data such as video, audio data etc.
According to the DVD standard, eight kinds of languages as the dubbed audio and thirty two kinds of languages as the subtitles can be recorded on a single disc at the maximum, and the language of the dubbed audio and the language of the subtitles can be freely combined from all the kinds of the languages of the dubbed audio and the subtitles at the time of reproducing a content recorded in the disc.
Thus, a viewer can freely set the dubbed audio and the subtitles to be reproduced in accordance with the viewer's preference and views the content. Such a function is called as a multi-language function.
As the DVD software in which video and audio data is recorded in advance, there is one for sales and another employing the pay-per-view system in which fee is charged each time viewing the content.
In the disc employing the pay-per-view system, it is necessary to manage the contents recorded in the disc. However, in the normal standard of the DVD, unlike the CD standard and the MD standard, it is not obliged to record management information, so that it is difficult to manage the contents in this state.
Thus, in the Divx (digital video express) pay-per-view system designed in the U.S., for example, BCA (burst cutting area) data as the optional standard of DVD is recorded in the burst cutting area. To be more concrete, the BCA data as the management information of the contents is recorded in an area at the inner peripheral side of the data recording area of a disc thereby to provide a system for facilitating the management of the contents recorded in the disc.
The content recorded in a disc accorded to the Divx system is encrypted by the unique encryption system different from other discs and hence can be viewed normally only by a DVD player dedicated to the Divx system.
The BCA data recorded in the BCA is read by the DVD player dedicated to the Divx system on a viewer side, then transmitted to a content management center by way of a telephone line and used for discriminating the content in the content management center. In the content management center, fee for each viewer is accounted in accordance with the contents and the viewing number of the contents.
The DVD player is arranged so as to be able to store only one set of the dubbed audio and the subtitles by using the aforesaid multi-language function and to continuously use this setting state.
To be more concrete, the DVD player is arranged so as to be able to store the parameters of the dubbed audio and the subtitles once set in a predetermine memory and to automatically read the parameters thus stored from the memory and set the dubbed audio and the subtitles thus read upon reproducing the content at the next time.
However, according to the related DVD player, the same dubbed audio and the subtitles is set on the basis of the parameters stored in the memory irrespective of the exchange of a disc (content) until the setting parameters are changed.
For example, after reproducing a disc having a content of a foreign movie with English voice and Japanese subtitles, when viewing a disc having another content of a documentary movie with Japanese voice without subtitles, such another content is reproduced with English voice and Japanese subtitles so long as the parameters are not newly set in accordance with the another content.
Accordingly, since it is required to newly set the parameters in accordance with a newly set content each time the content is exchanged, it has been desired to decrease the burden of such a parameter newly setting operation.